Healers Restoration Underground
After Grandmother, the freewill caretaker of Japan, leaves the island nation isolated and self-contained in orbit over the Earth following an alien invasion, Makiko Minashi and other citizens who believe that Tohru Nakadai, the 42nd Rai, allowed her to leave and helped put President Shinji Tanaka and the Humanists in power, establish the Healers Restoration Underground. When the most gifted engineers and most inventive roboticists rally to the restoration cause, they build tools of destruction that reflect their zeal. =Project Homecoming= After Rentaro Nakadai, the 41st Rai, tells Makiko of a module in Grandmother’s brain stem she created to allow humans to override her command systems, she plans to force her to return. The Colossus Under the veiled threat that they intended to blackout atmosphere and power across Japan, the Healers attacked the Skull Dome where Grandmother’s consciousness rested, which had become a shrine to Japan’s freewill caretaker, and stole a module from her brain stem. That day, at the Kiru Shrine, the Healers' headquarters, Koji Yama, a Healer scientist, informed Makiko that the module would bring them everything they had fought for, when, suddenly, Wasabe, a Healer double-agent who had infiltrated the Humanists and became the second-in-command of Commander Kazuyo Nakadai, the Humanists’ enforcer, startled them. As Makiko warned Wasabe that he was a fool for being there since his value as a spy would be lost if he were seen, he told her that he could not trust a transmission, even on their scan-shielded wavelengths, and that he had been unable to disguise the module’s removal. While Koji worried that an investigation would reveal the module’s true purpose and that everything would be lost, Makiko assured him that Project: Homecoming was too important and told him that they had to protect it, even if meant taking drastic measures. After Tohru and Kazuyo destroyed a colossus that the Healers built using pieces from drones Grandmother created to escape a technotumor that an alien carcino–pod created in her brain stem, Makiko assured Koji that its sacrifice convinced them that the circuit was destroyed and proclaimed that with it they would win what they wanted all along. The Proud Gatekeeper After Tohru raided a Neopium den where the citizenship indulged in Neopium, a narcotic that brought them contentment and, with prolonged exposure, swayed them to the Humanists cause that they then died defending, Makiko Minashi worried that his search for its source would bring him across their work just as Koji made progress adapting the neural circuit. Reluctant to surrender Project: Homecoming, Makiko sent her agents to a hidden factory that her scouts had uncovered to confirm that it was the secret Neopium laboratory to then leak the data through the newsgrids. That evening, a group of Healers blasted their way into a scan–shielded chamber through a maintenance-well in the Satori commerce spire in the warehouse section and Icespike, the laboratory’s enforcer, killed two of them and declared that their blood would be as good as any for writing the first chapter of his legend. After Icespike tossed a Healer inside a laboratory, the others shot him, but his armor deflected their ion fire and they had to use staffs against him, but, unfortunately, Icespike created an ice staff and beat them up. As Icespike loomed over an injured Healer that swore that she would not tell anyone what happened, he told her that he wanted her to tell everyone so that his legend would grow, but it was his job to protect the facility. When Icespike realized that if he freed the woman the government would send troops, Kazuyo, or Tohru, he let her go so that he could achieve his destiny to have his name on the lips of every, man, woman, and child. The Devil After Hiro, a Healer soldier, and a Healer force breached the Morita Desalinization works, a seawater storage facility, he reported their successful break in to Makiko Minashi, who was outside a restricted access maintenance station in the Osaka plexus with a Healer troop. After Koji used a dampening charge that sent a focused electromagnetic spike through the maintenance’s system that shut everything down, the Healers breached the station, and, while Makiko subdued the soldiers, Koji activated a module that brought the station online. When Koji expressed his concern over how they acquired the system codes, Makiko told him that, sometimes, one dealt with the devil. As Koji went over a console that shaped the Nerveweb’s pulses and monitored Tohru’s movements, Makiko told him that with the access codes they could create a surprise for him while she personally handled Kazuyo. When Tohru entered the Nerveweb to reach the seawater storage facility to help the survivors of an explosion, Koji initiated blocking codes that solidified the web around him to trap him in an artificial capsule and then activated the Nerveweb Dragon, a construct that drew its energy from the Nerveweb, to kill him. Though Tohru’s arrows tore the dragon’s flesh, it renewed instantly while the serpents on his head stroke without fear, heedless of the wounds that they made in the walls of the capsule. Abruptly, Tohru bowed before the beast and fooled it into tearing a hole on the capsule that he used to escape. That night, Makiko waited in a stolen vascab for Kazuyo outside the Happy Cloud child-care facility in sector Y where her son, Takashi Nakadai, lived. When Kazuyo rushed out of the facility after she received an alert about an emergency in the desalinization center and summoned her armor so that it would meet her there, Makiko offered to take her and Kazuyo got in the vascab oblivious of her identity. As the vascab flew over the city, Makiko asked Kazuyo whether she felt vulnerable without her armor, and, when she said that she could defend herself, she attacked her. During the fight, Kazuyo kicked Makiko into the console and the cab crashed in a museum. After Makiko crawled from the wreck, she killed a guard and went after Kazuyo, who toppled a statue over her and ordered her armor to find her. Before Makiko delivered a deadly blow to Kazuyo’s head, her Commando armor, which she seized from the aliens during the invasion, broke through the wall and wrapped itself around her. While Kazuyo donned the armor, Makiko escaped and stole a pursuit pod that she leapt out of when she flew behind a building and then set it off to distract Kazuyo while she escaped. After Kazuyo shot down the pod and found no trace of Makiko inside it, she left for the desalinization center. When the Healers reconvened in the Kiru Shrine, Makiko assured them that Tohru’s worth to Tanaka and his link to the people had weakened him, and told them that he would no longer be able to delay them. Certain that they would launch Project: Homecoming within two days, Makiko proclaimed that nothing would matter once Grandmother returned. Genocide While Wasabe stood in a hallway of the Humanists’ new government palace, a cyber–tech ran up to him and told him that he had broken the cyber code that the Healers’ used and could now make sense of the circuit–babble they had intercepted. When Wasabe offered to double-check the data chip, out of duty to the Healers, the tech held it back and told him that his orders were to take it directly to President Shinji Tanaka. Faced with no other option, Wasabe killed the tech and hid his corpse, then, once he was out of sight, he desperately contacted Makiko to inform her of his discovery. When Makiko responded, she condescendingly told Wasabe that she rarely made mistakes, but that assuming he was not an idiot had apparently been one, then she said that even an imbecile would know not to contact the underground from the palace, even on a scrambled line. While she chastised him, Makiko told Wasabe that the rocket they had secretly constructed to launch Project: Homecoming was barely adequate, as they had to cut corners and rushed schedules just to keep ahead of Tohru, and that they were almost ready. When Makiko inferred that if the Humanists traced the call they would stop them, Wasabe apologized and said that he would go see her in person. Before he terminated the call, Wasabe assured Makiko that with such a short transmission he was sure there was no danger. Moments later, Wasabe arrived at access hangar T–47 where the Healers had constructed a rocket and informed Makiko of the cyber–techs’ discovery, but she called it a minor inconvenience and said that soon the war would be over. Undaunted, Makiko told Wasabe that Tanaka had no idea that the circuit they stole from Grandmother’s brain stem was actually a failsafe device she created to allow human override of her command systems when she foresaw the possibility that someday, for whatever reason, she might loose control. As they loomed over the rocket, Makiko said that its sensors would seek out Grandmother’s unique energy signature, and once the failsafe took over and forced her to return to rule once more, victory would be theirs. Unbeknownst to Wasabe, operators in the security command station of the palace detected his transmission when he contacted Makiko and adjusted their spy spheres to follow him, and, at that moment, a Humanist tac squad stood in position outside the hangar. When the Humanists breached the access hangar, Kazuyo Nakadai accused Wasabe of being a traitor and went after him, but then Makiko grabbed her using a Healer Battlesuit that their scientists devised after they studied stolen alien components. Though the Battlesuit was not as sophisticated as Kazuyo’s armor, it resisted a Tiger Squads’ weaponry and then Makiko blasted him with its lasers. As she slapped Kazuyo with the Battlesuit’s arms, Makiko exclaimed that she was going to enjoy hurting her. When Tohru entered the hangar, Makiko, in her desperation, ordered Koji to initiate the rocket’s launch and the discharge from the rocket’s engines instantly killed many of their number. When Makiko tried to burn Kazuyo in the engine fire, Kazuyo shot Tohru in the back to get his attention and when he released a burst of energy into the Battlesuit to help Kazuyo escape, the influx caused Makiko to fire a blast that damaged the take-off ramp and placed the rocket in a trajectory against the outer hull. When Koji said that in their rush they had not installed an emergency shutdown circuit, Tohru damned him and then attempted to stop the rocket himself, but the exhaust blast kept him away and, despite his attempt to tear it apart with an energy spear, the rocket blasted off and tore through the hull. Almost instantaneously, the vacuum sucked thousands of Japanese citizens into the void of space. Following the tragedy, all the members of the Healers Restoration Underground were imprisoned. =The Fall of Japan= When Tohru Nakadai, Magnus, and Gilad Anni-Padda entered the Lost Land, a place outside time and reality, to stop Unity, a convergence of all timelines, the God-like entity called Erica Pierce feared that Tohru’s power posed the greater hazard to her plans. In a bid to turn Tohru away, Erica contacted him as a hologram projected through a Bionisaur and offered him a chance to save his world. After she conjured an image of Japan as it appeared in orbit over the Earth, Erica told Tohru that she was projecting an energy matrix wavelength into his timeline that increased gravitational fields, and then she pushed Japan from orbit to prove her intention. As Japan dropped Earthward, the suspension support arms deployed automatically throughout the host body to keep the citizens safe. After Erica gave Tohru a rod that would instantly transport him to Japan and negate the mag–grav field once he arrived, she melted the entrance he used to reach the Lost Land so that, once he left, he could never return. Stuck between Erica’s threat to fill the sky with the blood of millions, and Gilad and Magnus’ rationalization that she wanted him gone because she feared him and their plea that he weigh the millions of lives against the billions that would die if they lost, Tohru shattered the rod, and, in retaliation, Erica destroyed Japan. As Japan experienced an increased gravity surge that completely decayed its orbit and made an impact with Earth imminent, the technicians in the headland’s unified operations control center initiated dragon mode in an effort to break their fall, even though its missing limb prevented them from safely making planet-fall. In what felt like an eternity, Japan fell from the sky and crashed into the Indian Ocean, killing millions of people upon impact. Category: Rai Category: Groups